Day 9 – It’s a Buea-tiful Day!

It has been an exciting day – new town – new teachers. Luckily the drill doesn’t change and Rich D set about coach ed with the gusto we have come to expect.

We started off at 9 a.m. with 13 teachers, 2 local coaches and 3 coaches from Yaounde. After the first hour we were up to 19 teachers, which formed a promising bunch. Our numbers were also boosted by Emmanual, who passed his ICC Introductory course with us in Yaounde.

Jono started with some monitoring and evaluation work and we pleasantly discovered a good understanding of HIV and what we are trying to achieve. The highlight on this front was the attendance of a biology teacher from a local school who had wanted to come along to the coach ed when she heard about the HIV/AIDs element. We are looking forward to her feedback after we have worked with her and the children at her school. A valuable opportunity.

With everything under control and ground fielding drills underway, Rich T, Jo and I went off on a bit of a reconnaissance mission to see if our new town had a handy supermarket. The search resulted in biscuits and crisps from the petrol station for lunch. However, undaunted, the mission continues and we’ve got high hopes we spotted one that we are going to check out tomorrow.

We returned to see the group split into two teams with bowling on one side of the pitch and batting on the other. Given the heat, the ground conditions and how much hard work the teachers had put in, we called it a day at about 1.30p.m. We found the shade and went through our expectations and gave out the t-shirts and the coaching cards. Next was onto the logistics and the complicated task of lining up the availability of the schools with a timetable. We left this to Victor and Rich D to take care of.

Finally, back to the hotel for showers and the boys and Jo prepared for a round of golf. Annabel and I opted to indulge in the extensive clubhouse menu – you can have whatever you want as long as it is chicken and chips.